Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of one of her peers. “Y'know, for some reason I didn't expect to see a trainer here. Just seems very . . . casual.” The voice wasn’t particularly familiar but they were definitely talking to her.

Valarie looked first over her right shoulder and then twisted around to the other shoulder until she spotted the origin of the voice. A girl about her age, maybe younger, who knew. She looked away just as quickly and smiled down at her mug. It was probably one of her students—she should have known she would see at least one person there she knew.

“We have lives outside of teaching,” she replied with a little shake of her head. The smile remained on her face, though. She was starting to feel the slight cottony feeling she got in her head when she drank.

This would have to be her only drink.

She took a few mouthfuls and then set the mug back on the table and decided to give the girl her undivided attention. Valarie turned in her seat and leaned against the counter. “Even us instructors like to wind down every now and again. We also have fun occasionally,” she continued to tease, meanwhile trying to remember which student this was.

A new rider—not with any dragon ready to be up in the air. She knew that much. Valarie remembered all of the students she sent into the sky, but she recognized her a little bit. Something else was nagging at the back of her mind.

Valarie smiled and politely shook her head at the bartender. “No, no more for me thank you. I promised to take Choin for a flight around the island. . . if I am too drunk she won’t be able to fly straight,” she mused with a slight giggle. “You should probably be cut off, too.”

She said it with a bit more authoritative air, but she wasn’t the girl’s mother so she wasn’t going to push it.

“That is quite alright. My name is Valarie. You have—the purple dragon right? Ly is his name? I’m sure he will be a strong flier. Next year you could start riding on him every now and again to get him used to your weight,” she advised with a gentle smile, nodding her head in thought. She downed the rest of her mug and pushed it off to the side, hoping that the bartender listened to her and didn’t give her anymore.

Choin would be terrible disappointed if she had to cancel the flight. It was both girls’ favorite activity.

Without the mug to distract her, Valarie looked up from the counter to give the girl her proper attention. There was no need to sit and wallow with your memories when someone was right there attempting to have a conversation. It would be a good distraction, anyway.

Or it would have been.

The lighting was not ideal, but there was enough light by the counter so the bartender could do his work without bumping into things, and the light cast over the two girls. Valarie opened her mouth to speak, but that nagging feeling tugged at the threads of her memory. The pale lighting and small din of noise stirred something deep within her, and it quickened her pulse and dried out her mouth.

“Are. . . are you sure we have not properly met before?” she asked. Her palms were clammy and the muscles in her shoulders began to tremble. A fog lied thick over her mind from the drink, and she pushed at it, attempting to figure out this familiarity.

Val, Choin’s sharp voice nagged. She could feel the unease in her rider and didn’t like it.

No, no that wasn’t right. It was vague, but it was a prickling familiarity that drove her stomach to knots. She remembered every face of the crew, so she knew it wasn’t that. It was something else. A memory of a memory, faded by time and repression.

But it was there.

“Sorry, you don't look familiar!” Sky insisted, expression flush from the alcohol.

The tavern seemed to heave as the bartender walked in front of the light, casting them in shadow for the briefest moment. In that brief moment, Valarie was cast back into her memories, and it was there. She had seen her, just for a brief moment. She had been younger, not part of the crew, but part of a different crew. Very young. . . in line with some others that had been captured.

No danger to her, but it threw her back into a state she had thought she had control of.

Her breath left her in a gush and she was on her feet fast enough to tip her stool over and send someone hopping out of her way. The stool clattered to the floor and hushed nearby conversations. Valarie’s expression contorted into pure terror for the smallest of moments. She could hear her blood roaring in her ears and for a moment, she was close to tears.

For a moment, had she not worked on control for years, she would have been cast to her knees in a sniveling heap.

But the moment passed and she straightened up. Her hands shook and she panted as if she had been running for a short time. “I’m sorry I—I don’t know wh. . . . I’m sorry,” she murmured quietly, not trusting her voice to hold steady if she spoke any louder.

Choin was outside the tavern door, snarling and hissing. Valarie leaned down to pick up the stool, letting her hair fall into a curtain around her face. She tried her best to settle the red dragon down, but nothing short of going out there to show her Valarie was alright was going to quiet her down. She set the stool up on its legs and fished in her pocket for the right kind of change for the drink.

“I’m sorry—I’ll be right back. . . I have to go comfort my dragon,” she said her voice barely above a whisper. She was trembling from head to toe, but managed to stay upright as she turned.

Choin practically tore the door off its hinges before Valarie could open it. Luckily it was a door you had to pull from the inside to open, otherwise she probably would have succeeded and Valarie would have had to pay for a new door on top of the one drink she had had—and possibly a new stool. She hadn’t checked the damage.

The red butted her with her nose soon as she was free, crimson scales bristled and teeth bared. Her ice-blue eyes scanned over Valarie’s frame, looking for the thing that was causing her rider so much distress.

“Shh,” Valarie crooned, resting the palms of her hands against the hot scales of her dragon’s nose. She walked forward, putting a little bit of pressure on the snout as she went to get the dragon to back up away from the tavern so Choin wouldn’t eat the next person who walked out, thinking that they were the ones who had upset her.

They were getting a few looks from people on the street, but most people assumed it was just her red acting up a little bit—being too jealous or too overprotected. Most went about their business after they got a look at what was going on.

“I’m okay. I just—got a little scared, is all. But I’m okay,” Valarie murmured, leaning down to rest her forehead against Choin’s. Her dragon was crouched low, eyes scanning and wings unfurled just a little bit to make her look even bigger. Behind her, her whip-like tail lashed like an angry cat’s.

However, as Valarie’s heartbeat started to return to normal, the great beast relaxed and settled her wings in against her side once more. Choin would have been more curious had the two of them not shared thoughts so often—she knew now what had startled her rider and knew that it was nothing but memories that had chased her out of the tavern, not a physical opponent.

Both of them shared another few moments of closeness until Valarie felt comfortable being on her own again. “I have to go back in and make sure I didn’t break the stool,” she said quietly, rubbing Choin’s nose a little bit.

Though the dragon huffed in protest, she didn’t stop Valarie from turning and walking back to the tavern. Still, she stood vigil, an ever-watchful protector.

Sky emerged from the door and Valarie stopped in her tracks, a small jolt of fear coursed through her and she adopted the posture of a deer about to bolt. However, it only lasted a fleeting second before she had straightened up and replaced her expression with something softer. A practiced look—she had perfected the smile and it could nine times out of ten pass as the real thing.

“The stool's fine. Someone's already taken it,” Sky assured her.

“Well, I’ll still have to apologize at some point,” she said thoughtfully, avoiding looking directly at the young girl. It was unbecoming, this nervousness she felt around the student now, but it couldn’t be helped.

With time it would pass.

Choin took up a protective position behind her rider, head snaking around Valarie’s side. She could feel it—this was the girl who had scared her so thoroughly. Valarie wouldn’t like it if she ate her, though, so instead she settled on baring her fangs and daring her to come closer. In order to avoid a problem, Valarie kept her distance and put a hand on Choin’s brow.

The girl seemed hesitant at first with Choin being there, but then she gathered herself and motioned for Valarie to follow her. For a second the dragonrider hesitated, unsure if she should humor her, but then her feet started moving and she followed her around the corner. Her dragon stayed close by, keeping her cold gaze forever locked on Sky’s back, tail lashing out behind her. She almost knocked over a passerby who barely jumped out of the way in time.

“What happened back there? Was it something I said, and are you okay?” she asked. Valarie had to envy the amount of composure the younger girl was showing.

Valarie couldn’t even compose herself enough to look at her directly.

She nodded instead and managed that smile. “Everything is fine. I—you just. . . reminded me of someone from long ago and I guess it just put me on edge. . . I probably shouldn’t have had that drink, honestly. I don’t often drink and I have no tolerance for the stuff.” She was speaking a little faster than she intended and the excuse was out of her mouth before she could really think about it.